New Delhi: The Congress-Left-Indian Secular Front alliance is “partly in cahoots with the BJP” in West Bengal and will be stuck with single digits on 2 May when assembly election results are to be declared, the the Trinamool’s Parliamentary leader in the Rajya Sabha and the party’s chief national spokesperson Derek O’Brien has said.
“They (BJP) talk about cut money. This (the alliance) is their cut vote with cut money. They pay people to get all this done,” O’Brien said in an interview with ThePrint.
“But the people of Bengal know who has been with them in the good times and the difficult ones, and who has tried to change their lives.”
The Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP also dismissed the BJP’s allegations that the TMC was behind political killings in the state.
“Most of the killings here are by three BJP parties — BJP old, BJP new, BJP (ex-Trinamool),” he said. “There are 300 BJP MPs (in the country). Why did the party give tickets to 130 MPs with criminal records?
“Who is talking of political violence? Amit Shah? Modi? Let’s talk about 2002. What political violence are we talking about? One BJP person in Bengal died. We got to know he was running some illegal bank. They are looking for people. Someone will die of Covid. They will take the body and say political violence.”
O’Brien, however, admitted that the ruling Trinamool faces challenges, chief among them the long-drawn poll process, which will see Bengal vote in eight phases.
“In a long election, in the way it is being done over 33 days, you need solid funding,” he said. “And for funding, BJP is the best in the world. The longer the election, the more you have to spend.”
He further accused the BJP of “intimidating media owners” and influencing government agencies.
“The BJP has got the government at the Centre… They have all the agencies with them,” he said. “They have two people in-charge, who have had blood on their hands from 2002. No integrity there. They intimidate media owners. In all this, we have Mamata Banerjee and the good work that she has done and there is the implicit trust that the people of Bengal have in her government.”
He added that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee would’ve won from any constituency in the state, and not just Nandigram, from where she is contesting this time around.
“The BJP challenged her to stand from Nandigram. She is standing from there now. Defeat her,” O’Brien said, rubbishing opposition and political analysts’ observations that Banerjee changed her earlier constituency of Bhawanipore for Nandigram over a fear of losing.
Bhawanipore has a large non-Bengali population and analysts say that they are peeved with the chief minister over her “outsider” jibe directed at them.
O’Brien said that with the chief minister, it is a case of damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.
“If she stood from both constituencies, then they (analysts) would have said that she is not sure of one of the seats and that is why she is standing in two seats,” he said. “If she stood only from Bhawanipore, then they would have said that this is an urban (South Kolkata) and not rural constituency. These so-called analysts have completely lost their sense of doing any political analysis and are trying to please the BJP.”
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‘BJP afraid of announcing a CM face’
The Trinamool Congress national spokesperson also took on the BJP for not naming a chief ministerial candidate in West Bengal. This, he added, is because the party is afraid of dissent.
“I want to challenge Mr Amit Shah and Mr Modi to announce their CM candidate,” he said. “They won’t…. because if you say A, then B,C,D will be angry. If you say C, then A,B and D will be angry.”
He added that the BJP didn’t even announce its list of candidates in Bengal. “Even the lists have to be announced in Hindi from the party office in Delhi,” he said. “You want to come and run Bengal and you don’t even know where Rabindranath Tagore was born.”
‘Mamata will be sworn in for the 3rd time on 2 May’
O’Brien said the Trinamool Congress is absolutely confident that on 2 May, the Mamata Banerjee government will be sworn in for the third time.
He also said that the party will secure a “comfortable majority” but refused to provide a number. West Bengal has 294 assembly constituencies.
The Trinamool government, he added, has achieved tremendous success on a variety of parameters — health, education, welfare schemes, job generation, building road infrastructure, MSME sector, ease of doing business, winning agriculture awards from the Modi government six years in a row among others.
“When you have done this kind of good work, in all humility, we expect to be abundantly rewarded,” he said.
On MPs, MLAs and ministers defecting from the Trinamool, O’Brien said it was not a “matter of concern” for the party.
“I don’t want to comment on those who have left. But out of 220 MLAs (211 Trinamool MPs and nine MLAs who defected to the party), there were still over 200 MLAs with Trinamool before the tickets were announced,” he said. “We are the third largest party in Parliament with 22 and 12 MPs in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively. One or two MPs leaving can’t be called a spate of defections.”
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On Abhishek Banerjee’s rise in Trinamool
Denying charges by defecting Trinamool leaders that Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, was functioning in a high-handed manner, O’Brien said, “When you want to leave, you will look for all the excuses. I don’t want to give any kind of importance to what they have said.”
The Trinamool leader, however, added that Abhishek’s has risen through the party ranks purely on merit.
He said that Abhishek was given a Lok Sabha ticket in 2014 and won the elections by over 71,000 votes.
“He probably got the ticket that time because he was a youth worker,” O’Brien said. “He could have been put on the fast track because he was Mamata Banerjee’s nephew. He could have been given a South Kolkata ticket but was instead given a ticket from Diamond Harbour. He went there, fought and won.”
O’Brien added, “After five years, in 2019, he went back to the people of Diamond Harbour and told them ‘I am your young MP, this is what I have done, will you give me another chance’… This time, he won by over three lakh votes.”
The Trinamool MP also said the recent questioning of Abhishek Banerjee’s wife by the CBI was not mere coincidence. “It has to do with timing. This is the way Modi-Shah run their politics,” he said. “They are so blatant about it. So many of their allies have run away — the Shiromani Akali Dal, Shiv Sena… So what do they do? Now they have allies like CBI, ED, IB.”
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On roping in election strategist Prashant Kishore
Asked why a mass leader like Mamata Banerjee also needs a poll strategist such as Prashant Kishor, O’Brien said there is nothing wrong in hiring an agency to strategise for elections.
“When Narendra Modi as the CM of Gujarat roped in Prashant Kishor in 2010-11 and later when he was fighting to become PM in 2014, it was alright. When Trinamool does it, it is bad?” he asked.
“If any political party says we know it all, I will say no, we don’t know it all,” he added. “So we need different kinds of strategies.”
‘Bengal saw 40% reduction in unemployment’
O’Brien accused Home Minister Amit Shah and the prime minister of spreading negative propaganda with respect to investments, adding that the state has seen a 40 per cent reduction in unemployment between April 2020 and January 2021.
“While nationally the unemployment rate was 7.82 per cent in 2019, it then rose to 9.1 per cent. There were 1-2 crore job losses,” he said. “But Bengal saw a 40 per cent reduction in unemployment. 23 lakh new jobs were generated in the state. These are not our figures but the Government of India’s capital to labour ratio.”
He also said that the BJP has not abandoned the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) but the people of West Bengal, the Trinamool leader said.
“What citizenship are they talking about? Has anyone got citizenship? Not a single one,” he said. “People will see through this…. It is all amplified gas and people of Bengal will stand up.”
On farmers not getting benefits of schemes such as PM Kisan
O’Brien also said that the Trinamool has always backed farmers, while responding to BJP charges that it was denying them central government benefits.
“The Trinamool was the first party to take up cudgels on behalf of farmers in Nandigram and Singur. Today there is a land acquisition bill in India is because of Mamata Banerjee, no one else,” he said.
“When the bill first came it was opposed. Then it came again. The Congress and BJP wanted it to be passed (an earlier version of the bill). In the Rajya Sabha, the Trinamool opposed it. Mamata Banerjee’s view on land reforms is that agriculture and industry can co-exist like two leaves in a bud.”
On West Bengal’s farmers not benefitting from PM Kisan, he said, “Under PM Kisan, who pays the insurance? From sowing, right up to reaping, who pays the insurance? It’s paid by the farmers — 60 per cent is paid by the state, and the rest by farmers,” he said. “In Bengal, no insurance is paid by the farmers. The state government pays the entirety. If a farmer dies between the age of 18 and 60, the family gets Rs 2 lakh as compensation.
“Mamata Banerjee said she would double farmers’ income when she came to power in 2011,” he said. “That time farmers income after meeting all expenditure was Rs 97,000. She has not only doubled but tripled farmers’ income in 10 years. Modi said he will double farmers’ income by 2022. At the current rate in 2022, it wont even double, and will only happen in 2028.”
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40% reduction in employment? the rate was 17% unemployed in bengal May 2020 , 10% higher then national average, as per CMIE.
And what land bill, the bill that stops development on wasteland, which denies land owners the right to collect tax , what are bengalis doing cleaning lattrines in tamil nadu. brian needs to be hanged , dharti ka boj
A rabid rabble rousing proselytizer who job as specified by DANGA DIDI is to bad mouth HINDUS, is upset his conversion agenda will be affected once BJP gains POWER.
Congress-Left-ISF will support TMC’s government from outside after the elections results to keep BJP away from power like what has happened in Maharashtra. Mark my words.
Derek o Brien ke muh mein ghee shakkar.
Every time prescient utterances from him is just gold and advantage opposing party.
I am feeling giddy now.
19 mein half is baar saaf.